The Last Wish - Book Review

Though I’m an avid gamer, I’ve never played any of The Witcher games, though they’ve been recommended to me by multiple friends. If I ever do get around to them, I’ll write a review. But in the meantime, I thought I’d write a review of the novels that that series is based on, so without further delay, here’s my review of The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski.

The Last Wish follows the journey of Geralt of Rivia, who is a Witcher; someone whose sole profession is to hunt down and kill monsters. He’s received multiple mutations in order to do so, which give him increased physical strength, healing, along with some use of magic. Along the way, he meets a colorful cast of characters, from a sorceress named Yennefer (who is also Geralt’s love interest) to a luckless bard named Dandelion. Many of the monsters that Geralt encounters appear to be taken from old European folk lore — something that I find very interesting. I do like it when authors incorporate mythology of any sort into their works, and Sapkowski does this brilliantly in The Last Wish. But throughout his travels, Geralt finds that his job is not always a black and white assignment; some of the “monsters” he meets are more human than others, whereas some of the humans have souls that are blacker than soot.

To call The Last Wish a novel is slightly erroneous. In fact, it reads almost like an anthology. The novel starts with Geralt taking refuge in a temple, where he’s on good terms with the Head Priestess, Nenneke — a colorful character in her own right. We are then teleported back in time, and told of some of Geralt’s other adventures. While it’s not that obtrusive, it’s still a format that I find a little bit annoying. I prefer to read a book in chronological order, not in whatever order the author finds most convenient. Of course, some authors have used similar formats to great success (see William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury), but in this case, it’s just annoying. Keep in mind, the stories that Sapkowski tells are rather good, so this doesn’t make The Last Wish a bad novel, but it doesn’t exactly help either.

Now, for this next part of the review, I’ll be going into spoiler territory. While it’s my general policy to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible, I really can’t talk about this part of the novel without giving away some plot points. If you want to get the best possible experience out of this novel (and I do recommend it), then please skip this part. I’ll let you know when it’s over.

**SPOILER ALERT!!**

While reading this novel, I encountered what is best described as a cultural barrier; as I mentioned previously, Sapkowski uses old European folklore as the basis for most of his monsters. However, much of this folklore, at one point, fell into the hands of none other than Walt Disney, who, in turn, used them to create his own movies. And since the book was published in ’93, shortly after the fall of communism in Poland, I’m guessing that Sapkowski wasn’t aware of the Disney movies when he wrote the novel. Sapkowski also uses exceptionally dark versions of the fairy tails, reworking them to suit his story. This gives it an almost comical tone that doesn’t jibe well with the nature of the books; I sometimes find it hard to take the books seriously when I keep imagining the Disney movies alongside Sapkowski’s version of the fairy tales. Fortunately, Sapkowski’s really reworked the fairy tales so that they suit his novel, so they’re fairly hard to recognize.

Now, some people are probably going call Sapkowski uncreative for simply repurposing fairy tales, but I’d like to preemptively defend him. First of all, fairy tales are the sort of story that are made to be adapted into new forms (I don’t think anyone would call Walt Disney “uncreative” for repurposing the old Grimm Brothers tales in order to make his movies). Second of all, like I said earlier, Sapkowski has used a lot of creative license in reworking the fairy tales to fit his novel; I didn’t even realize that he was doing it until about halfway through the book.

**SPOILER ALERT OVER!!**

Okay, spoiler time is over. Now, let’s go on to the next part of the review.

Another thing to realize about The Last Wish is that it’s a translation. As such, I encourage anyone who is able to read it in the original Polish. The translation itself is pretty good; it’s certainly not the best translation I’ve ever seen, but it’s decent, all things considered. Now, if you’re a fan of the The Witcher video games, then I absolutely recommend that you give The Last Wish a read, as well as the other Witcher books. But if you’ve never even heard of the games, I’d still recommend them. Despite the non-chronological nature of the story, Geralt’s character arc is still very well thought out, and the world of The Last Wish is incredibly detailed and interesting. So, if you happen to come across it in your local bookstore, give it a read.

3/5 Stars